Descent
by InkFalls
Summary: Hermione Granger no longer knows what's real and what isn't. She's being held captive by Voldemort and bit by bit, pieces of her world have been taken away because of the experiments. Only three things remained for her now. One-shot.


_Notes:__ Descent isn't set in any particular time frame from the Harry Potter series; it's just a scene that came to mind a while back when I thought about what would happen if Hermione ever got caught by Voldemort. I was originally going to call it Descent Into Madness but no one really gets crazy enough to be called utterly mad, just a bit out of it (apart from Voldemort, who is quite obviously slightly loony). I have to warn you, this one-shot is a bit more darker than what I've previously written because it involves Voldemort and...well, Voldemort just isn't Voldemort unless he's scary and doing something slightly disturbing. So, if your looking for a happy or humorous fanfic please don't read on, Descent isn't too dark (the worst thing in it is about Crucio) but I thought I'd warn you just in case this does actually disturb someone. I'd really love some feed back on this to find out what you all think about it, it doesnt seem entirely right to me but I can't pin-point why (maybe I should just stick with the lighter writing). anyway, on a different note, Descent is definitely a one-shot._

_Disclaimer: __All the characters and everything that relates to the HP series is property of JK Rowling, I don't own or make money from any of this._

**Descent**

A ridiculous Floaty Feeling was consuming Hermione's senses, giving her a brief respite before the pain intensified and she was writhing all over the floor again.

This time it was the Analytical side of her mind that took over, allowing her to distance herself by compartmentalising and categorising the levels and feel of the pain. The seemingly never-ending routine that Hermione was stuck in the loop of was beginning to become hysterically funny. She'd never noticed it before but now she knew that if you were subjected to a continuous level of pain for a while, you got so used to it that eventually you hardly noticed it at all, you could hardly feel it. Those were the Floaty Feeling moments, that small frame of time where Hermione had become accustomed to the level of pain. The Floaty moments made her wonder if she was actually real, made her doubt that anything at all was real, She'd begun to believe that she was just stuck in a nightmare that wouldn't end.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Voldemort hadn't found her reaction so fascinating. When she slipped into her Analytical frame of mind she could stop herself from screaming and crying; she could sometimes see the room that she was being held in too but if she stayed like that for too long her tight grip on the frail strand of her sanity began to slip and the strand started to fray. He always stopped before she could completely lose her mind though. Either that, or the Floaty Feeling would flood and sooth her.

Usually- when Voldemort first kicked up the level of the Cruciatus Curse so she felt the pain all over again in one raw wave of agony- it was the White Rage side of her that took over. When the White Rage was in control Hermione couldn't stop any of her reactions to the pain. She would scream, scream, _scream_ and her body would twist into shapes she never knew were possible. She couldn't see a single thing of what she was doing when the White Rage was in control. All she saw was white; everything was blank and pristine and _white_.

Generally, Hermione would associate rage with the colour red but the White Rage was beyond anything she'd ever felt before. It was like sticking your hand into water that was so hot that it felt cold on your skin or being so cold that you actually felt warm. The White Rage was _everything_. It was all her thoughts, feelings, memories and so much more. Above all it was just rage. So much unbelievable rage. Sometimes -when Hermione slipped back into being Analytical- she wondered if feeling too much could ever kill you. Yes, the White Rage was everything, but Hermione couldn't comprehend everything all at once while under the Cruciatus so, in the end, the White Rage was also nothing.

Nothing because it was everything.

She wondered if laughing would just make her hurt even more.

Every time Hermione was tugged into the White Rage her wandless magic grew larger. It wasn't just her actions that the White Rage made her lose control over, it was her magic too. Just another thing that made Voldemort fascinated by her.

At first, the Cruciatus experiments were carried out on her by a Death Eater; just another nameless and faceless soldier, ready to go out and battle and die in a mask at his Dark Lords command. The experiments were made just that bit more horrible because Hermione didn't know who was behind that mask torturing her. _The Devil you know and the Devil you don't._

She'd been thrown into a room with double walls for the experiments; the outside walls were warded and charmed with numerous pieces of magic to stop her being able to escape while the inner walls had some kind of Magic Nulling Shield wrapped around them that prevented Hermione from being able to access her own magic but allowed anyone else inside the outer walls but outside the inner walls to use magic on her. When the Analytical side hit her, she could see the Magic Nulling Shield on the inner walls, like a neon blue net wrapped over the bricks.

After the third time she was pulled into the White Rage during an experiment, magic exploded out of her and shredded the Magic Nulling Shield _and_ the wards on the outer walls. She could feel her magic storming in the air around her, uncontrolled and wild but she was too weak with pain to attempt to escape. Her desperation for freedom managed to propel her up into a sitting position but that was it. Her muscles felt like liquid and she couldn't move an inch after that, she just sat cross legged on the floor, bent over and heaving for breath.

Hermione was still sat like that when Voldemort sought her out for the first time. A Sonorus charm was used so he could speak to her before and after the experiments; he'd once left the charm going while he had a conversation with someone who (Hermione presumed) was Luscious Malfoy, one of them mentioned she'd shredded all other magic in a 30ft radius during the third experiment, she no longer knew who it was that had said that. Everything was becoming muddled up in her mind. Everything but the Analytic and White Rage sides of her. She knew _why_ he let her hear it though; he was using it to taunt her, to show her how she'd missed her chance for escape. It didn't matter anyway; Voldemort's taunts were nothing compared to those of the White Rage, it kept promising to help her wandless magic grow until she could shred Voldemort's magic too. It always faded before she could try to use it to achieve freedom.

It was after the third experiment on her that Voldemort had decided to take over the experiments personally. He'd put the wards and the Shield back up himself and strengthened them every time he paid her one of his visits. Voldemort's shield was brighter than the last one. It _pulsated_ with magic. She'd never managed to tear out his magic yet.

Hermione had soon lost count of the number of 'experiments' carried out on her. The Cruciatus Curse she'd just been under had stopped now and the Floaty Feeling was blissfully returning. Somewhere, in one of the further recesses of her mind, Hermione was dimly aware of the Sonorus version of Voldemort's voice piping up. It roared dully in her ears and a small smile of relief graced her features. She usually ached after a round of Crucio but she felt relatively pain free this time. Hermione tried to raise her hand to touch her face but none of her muscles would comply. She couldn't even twitch a finger.

The part of her mind that registered Voldemort's voice earlier told her that she should probably be panicking as darkness began to overwhelm what little vision she had left. She couldn't bring herself to care. It was such a relief to see something other than the empty room and the blankness of the White Rage. Such a relief to escape it all. At least she'd never shared any secrets, she'd managed that much. Even if she never had manage to escape.


End file.
